Matt D

The world is a vampire that steals my Houston wrestling footage.

Ok, quick shift. Jetlag, you're saved from the (perfectly good) midget match. shodate will not be with us at this point so laz, you're with Jetlag. You can watch this. Toss something Jetlag's way.

He's talked so much about watching tape and changing his style. I'll be curious to see if he really does that or not. What he was suggesting are things that would be more along the lines of what I like anyway.

Let's keep him far away from Luke Harper.

I have absolutely no idea what this is, but I'll watch it along with whatever joe sends me, to broaden my horizons and better myself as a human being. You're not obliged to watch this, but if I were to make you watch a match this week, it'd be this. A midget match, with a few midget spots (built to as if they were high spots and not just rote), but generally worked like 15-20 minute 70s NWA title match.

Joe, trying to hoist this match upon you again. enjoy.

Ok. Week 12. Sam didn't post anything so he's out until he indicates that he's back. SPS is on haitus. WingedEagle is taking a week off. I assume Migs is still off. JoeG is in and paired with me as a make-up. I tried harder than usual to get new pairings this time around. oldbirds, I'm assuming you're in. Let me know if not. Matt D joeg shodate laz siredgar HeadCheese Richeyedwards oldbirds Jmare007 Nintendo Logic dawho5 rah EDIT: jetlag laz (if you're both willing) Jetlag, you're the odd man out this week. So i'll double up if no one else wants to jump in.

(It was Wegmann's actually).

People at the supermarket were going on about how horrific it'd be if Jinder had to take Styles' place while I was checking out yesterday.

Everyone should check out the BattlArts match that DaWho had me watch, too. That's a hell of a ting. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/21913-yuki-ishikawa-alexander-otsuka-munenori-sawa-vs-daisuke-ikeda-katsumi-usuda-super-tiger-ii-battlarts-072608/&do=findComment&comment=5836473 Ok, we reshuffle the deck tomorrow. I heard from JoeG last night so I'll resync with him and pull us out of the pool. Taking stock, Migs is going to take a week off (I assume), oldbirds wants to get in on this (I also assume). Anyone else that's taken time off want to jump back on? Anyone need a break. Let me know. I'm also going to try to reshuffle until Nintendo Logic has a new match up, just to keep things fresh.

This is very much where I am on this. It's all about the story. I'm not super-versed on BattlArts. I've just seen a few matches here and there. What stood out to me the most was the inevitability of what happened. Super Tiger's side came off like rudos here, much more apt to triple team or to go away from sportsmanship. So much made complete sense. It took a full breakdown with all of one side caught for the first fall to take place. Before that, it felt like one of those big NJPW multi-mans from the 80s where you were in danger anytime you got too close to the corner, except for here, the corner came to you. Then there was the 3-on-2 where the 3 kept breaking up any advantage from the 2 and it took suplexing everyone on the other side to be able to even the odds. After that it was Otsuka dominant and it was only when he got towards the corner and ate a cheapshot that they could get an advantage on him (and that's how they eventually got over on him). Finally we were back to that 2-on-1 where Ishikawa couldn't get a break until he was able to lock on a submission so quick that Ikeda couldn't make it in. Then it's finally the two exhausted warriors, neither of them able to lock in the holds of the first ten minutes and each one just throwing everything he had at the other. Buoying that were brutal strikes, incredible throws, matwork so crisp and quick that you wonder how they locked in the holds, so tricked out that it takes a half second to see who's hurting who (often times it's mutual), and with enough care and struggle that nothing looks easy or given. I thought I might be a little lost, but everything was primal. They started right from the get go with a tandem figure four and multiple stomps. This is a style (or a match in a stye) that absolutely embraced the bizarreness and outlandishness of pro wrestling, that was real within those confines. There was escalation but there was also an escalation of exhaustion. As the battle wore on, what was easy for them in the first few minutes became outright impossible. Great stuff.

My condolences.

Hadn't seen this one before. I enjoyed it. Faraon's a guy I have less of a sense of than, let's say, Talisman, but he was more than willing to meet Satanico halfway here. Good, heated, stuff.

Apparently Faraon was a tecnico here but you wouldn't know it. This was a heated (stakeless) mano a mano match. Structure was Satanico taking over in the primera with a beatdown into the segunda, Faraon coming back at the end of that, and then getting his revenge into the tecera until they went towards the finish. Satanico's beatdown was as good as it ever was. He's the best heel in the history of wrestling after all. Faraon wrestled dirty for the most part, trading nasty tactic for nasty tactic with Satanico. Most of the main transitions were due to the ref getting involved which is never ideal. Despite being gritty, this still felt "big" with big whiffs at certain points. Faraon's Slam/Senton/Mecedora was a cool sequence. They were playing for the back rows even if they were plenty mean about it. I liked the parallel spots but they would have made more sense if Faraon was a rudo. Satanico was having matches like this every week for decades on end. That we don't have more of them readily available is a travesty. The foul on the finish was so good I wish he had gotten away with it. Only Satanico.

Bucks are ICP if ICP were very talented musicians.

I have no interest in watching it, but I want the thing to succeed. I kind of want to see how Vince responds if it does, too.

Realism doesn't matter anyway. Symbolic consistency does.

Maybe we should take a second on timelessness actually. I was having a talk with Loss earlier and as part of the tweets over the last few days, he pointed out to me that Dave said this: "First time I saw them in PWG I realized they had excellent psychology and that was years ago. But I'm a lot more open minded on that, in that I was taught by Terry Funk you play to your audience on that night, not adhere to specific rules. -- Dave on the Young Bucks" Loss wasn't taking a position on it, but he knew it was something that would interest me. We went around with it a bit (including talking about burning out crowds or leading crowds/killing the golden goose/creating unsustainable escalation) but where I ended up was with this: "I also think we criticize art in different ways than it was intended often. I imagine portrait artists in the 1600s were very focused on pleasing their audience. We don't judge their art on how big a commission they got or how happy their patrons were, do we?" There are interactive elements in wrestling but I think, in general, it's the notion I stick to. I think it's possible to judge wrestling (even specific matches) on how successful they were financially, on how successful they were for the crowd that they were in front of, AND for some general, comparative artistic value. You can rate/judge/compare/criticize wrestling on any of those axes. It's fine so long as you admit what you're doing and try to admit your biases. It's when people start to argue with one another across those lines that you get the unsolvable problems.